


The Curious Case of the Talking Tattoo

by stardust_made



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Crack, First Time, Humor, M/M, Slash, Tattoos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-10
Updated: 2011-12-10
Packaged: 2017-10-27 04:06:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/291448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardust_made/pseuds/stardust_made
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The prompt for this was psychic connection with something sensual.The result is crack!kinda psychic!erotic!fic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Curious Case of the Talking Tattoo

The first time it happens, Sherlock dismisses it outright. It’s a trick of the mind. It’s happened before, when his brain has just been deprived of its meal of fresh oxygen.

The second time it happens, Sherlock is too busy processing the rusty sensations of his body to pay attention to his mind.

The third time it happens, he goes back and scrutinizes the previous two times. Then he arranges and rearranges the data until he threatens himself with a swelling of the brain. But the impossible refuses to be eliminated.

It appears Sherlock has a supernatural connection to John. Through a tattoo.

John’s tattoo is a single colour-thing, done in his twenties, probably under pressure from someone. Sherlock knows how that works. That it used to work the same way for John *BS*—Before Sherlock—isn’t a comfortable thought at all. He is glad to see that the tattoo reflects at least some of John’s personality. It’s small and not on obvious display. The art itself is so subtle, it could almost pass for plain. And it’s got a surprisingly sharp bite to it. Literally: on the side of his left hip, right over the bone John’s got a small tasteful tattoo of a snake, head raised, tongue barely visible.

***

When Sherlock bursts into the bathroom, eyes bulging and face purple, John acts with the frightening efficiency, which marks him at any crisis. The evil piece of the Brazil nut, stuck where it’s not its ruddy business to be stuck, flies out of Sherlock’s mouth and ricochets off the mirror, then knocks the toothpaste—squeezed to within an inch of its life—into the sink.

Sherlock bends over, hands propped on the edge of the bath, and gulps air. The return of oxygen kick-starts his brain again and he becomes aware of a few unusual occurrences. He’s bent over, all right, but he also appears to have a semi-naked John Watson attached to him. John’s arms are still wrapped around Sherlock’s chest, meaning John has bent over with Sherlock. Behind Sherlock. _Over_ Sherlock, a pedantic linguist might say. Sherlock slowly looks down at the hands, placed just below his solar plexus in a super precise lock that has just saved his life. (And wouldn’t it have been hateful if his tombstone read, “Sherlock Holmes: Died after choking on a Brazil nut”?) Then Sherlock registers the body heat radiating from John, and finally, the moist, ticklish, and extremely pleasant huffs of air at the nape of his neck.

“Er…John,” Sherlock tries.

The hands instantly disentangle and the pressure disappears from his back, leaving Sherlock feeling cold and…thin somehow, like a sheet of paper suddenly left without the reassuring heaviness of the paperweight. Sherlock turns to find John looking at him, flushed. (Exertion from the sudden application of force? Or has John noticed the _bending over_?) They look at each other for a few moments, unsure, but neither of them makes a move to leave. In his attempt to avoid further embarrassment, Sherlock’s eyes seek places other than John’s face—and somehow, he doesn’t know how, they fall on the line of damp, smoothed hair moving down John’s abdomen. The towel around John’s waist went a bit askew during the impromptu first aid, so Sherlock has a chance to see how nicely the hair changes colour along John’s body: like leaves through the autumn, from light to golden to brown, darker and darker it gets…

Sherlock’s eyes bulge again as he realizes he’s using them to stare where even his limited _Dictionary of Human Interactions_ informs him is not appropriate. His eyes jump sideways—and fall on the tattoo! Or rather, on a hint of it: just the snake’s head peeking over the towel. Before he knows what he’s doing Sherlock has reached out, touching the pigmented skin. And that’s when it happens.

 _*Yessssss, touch me, TOUCH ME, more, MORE, contact, pull the towel down, touch me, FINGERS, fingers, touch me*_

Sherlock yanks his hand away as if the snake’s just bitten him. Whispers—those were whispers: distant, some louder, some very weak, but clear enough for him to distinguish the words. He looks sharply at John, whose face and neck have used the time to acquire a shade of red four-tone deeper than before. John is as wide-eyed as any of Sherlock’s brilliant deductions has ever left him. Sherlock squints, ready to interrogate.

“Did you just say—“

John pushes passed him.

“Sorry, ‘scuse—running late.”

The sound of frantic feet and the hearty slam of a bedroom door. Sherlock sits on the loo, steeples his fingers and thinks.

No, his mind must have played tricks on him. It’s happened before, when his brain has just been deprived of its meal of fresh oxygen.

The tattoo looked quite well done, though, from what he could see. Sherlock wonders how far under the towel it was hiding.

***

It has to be Mrs. Hudson’s fault, in part. When she said “I’ve left the letters with John, Sherlock. You really need to look at the one from the Council—it had that line on it, you know, the ones they put across the envelop when it’s urgent…”, what else was Sherlock supposed to do but go into John’s bedroom to look for the wretched letter? It was important, had something or other to do with the Council. Mrs Hudson had said so!

It’s also John’s fault, because he knows Sherlock’s boundaries are slightly more elastic than those of other people. John should learn to lock his door, or get a _Do Not Disturb_ sign—oh, right, he did get one. Well, who had time to read signs when there were exciting bits of information from members of the biggest _Trainspotting Appreciation Society_ to be shared? At any rate it is John’s responsibility to protect his own privacy.

It might also be the fault of the weather: humid and hot like London hasn’t seen since whenever they keep repeating on the news. It has driven birds out of their nests, ice-cream vendors out of their houses and now, John Watson out of his undergarments.

John’s sleeping form turns out to be one of the most mesmerising sights Sherlock has ever beheld and that’s the naked truth, and Sherlock can’t even bring himself to resent the pun the way he resents all puns on principle. He drinks the softer contours of flesh and the harder lines of muscle; he takes in the sun-drenched skin and the intimately relaxed face. Sherlock’s hands itch: for a chisel, for a brush, for an instrument to lay his hands upon and—

Sherlock moves, like sunlight glides across the floor in a late-afternoon room. He crouches by John’s side. He sees so much more now, and it goes straight to his head. Sherlock got drunk on champagne the day Mycroft revealed that he was going to Cambridge, and before Sherlock got sick, his head filled with a euphoric, liberating, tantalizing dizziness. It pales before this.

Sherlock’s eyes travel over the familiar damp patch of hair down John’s chest and abdomen. He’s thought about it over the last week—or rather, it’s managed to get itself thought about: at odd places, at night, in the middle of something completely irrelevant to it. This time the damp is because of sweat and Sherlock breathes it in. The champagne comparison becomes quite ineffectual at that point.

John’s sweating just water, really: he drinks barrels of it. Naturally, the doctor has taken to heart keeping the occupants of 221 B Baker Street hydrated during the heat wave. For two weeks Sherlock’s had full glasses pushed into his hands; bottles of water have mysteriously materialized on his nightstand and cartoons of juice have been thrown at him, in addition to anti-dehydration pills being pressed into his palm. (“You know what you’re like. Drink and don’t argue.”)

John’s sweat smells of John. That’s because in effect it’s John-distilled water, purified by John’s cells and coming out in a thin sheen all over his warm, pliant body. Sherlock’s overcome with desire to taste it—desire so strong that it sweeps all common sense out of him.

His eyes fall on the snake, curled in its full, delicate glory. John’s skin at his hipbone looks like silk: utterly smooth and unmarred by a single mole or hair. It becomes with no effort the prime candidate for tasting. Besides, Sherlock will simply _have_ to get close to see that peculiar little stamp on John’s skin. It marked John when Sherlock was still a long way away from being part of John’s life, and that’s slightly unnerving and wrong. The tattoo needs to be examined.

The closer Sherlock gets to it, the stronger the noise in his ears. At first he assigns it to the blood rushing in his head, then he suddenly realizes it can’t be that because the blood seems to have relocated elsewhere. That takes him aback and gives him pause, but he resumes his quest quickly—he’s too far gone to stop now. Maybe the noise if coming from the sheets, rustling under his nervous fingers?

Then it doesn’t matter, because Sherlock is close enough to see every detail of the tattoo and it is exquisite, and he hates it. He can’t take his eyes off it. He muses dimly that it’s fitting he seems to be hypnotised by a reptilian. Sherlock wants to lick the snake off and out of John’s skin, to trace a new pattern, his _own_ pattern there. He closes his eyes and his tongue presses.

 _*Taste, lick, TASTE, press, writhe, WRITHE, wet and hot, HOT, HOT, good, so GOOD, TASTE*_

Sherlock’s eyes fly open, but his mouth stays sealed over the skin. His whole body chimes with sensation and he craves pleasure, physical pleasure, like he never has, and it’s all coming from under his tongue, under his nostrils, in front of his eyes—John. Oh John…

“What the hell are you doing?”

John’s voice, hysterical and very much awake, explodes in Sherlock’s ears just as Sherlock’s jaw is punched by a hip for a first time ever. John scampers upwards and drags a sheet over his lower regions. Sherlock opens his mouth, but finds there is absolutely nothing he can think of to say. He’s still on the floor, staring at John soundlessly.

“Out. Get out!” John demands, but his eyes aren’t furious—they’re frenzied, yes, but not angry. Sherlock decides to quit while he’s still ahead and swiftly rises to his feet. The room spins and then Sherlock’s out of it, turning to close the door behind him in a belated gesture of consideration. As he does, his eyes fall on John—and Sherlock’s omnipotent eye notices the way the sheet pulls taut at some places over John’s body. Places, where it normally wouldn’t.

Outside, he leans on the wall and is too busy processing the rusty sensations of his body to pay attention to his mind.

***

There is a theft—an old oil-painting of a snotty earl—that sends Sherlock to Somerset for four days. He doesn’t quite work up the nerve to invite John to accompany him, although he’s sure the promise of an old, cool mansion in the countryside would hold a great appeal for anyone at this stage: they’re all slowly roasting in London. Sherlock finds his vocal apparatus missing some essential parts—like cords, for instance—every time he turns to speak to John. He isn’t baffled by his own conduct any longer. He’s figured some things out; that wasn’t difficult. What’s difficult is decide what actions those things entail. The abominable prospect of being shooed on a larger scale—imaginary cries to the effect of “Out! Get out of my _life_!” ring in his head—is making Sherlock treat John differently. Much like he treated the Vieuxtemps Guarneri, when he had to fight its thief with one hand, on a rooftop, while holding the precious violin with the other. Trepidation might be a good word to describe it.

John avoided Sherlock entirely for two days, then just avoided speaking to Sherlock for another two, until finally he was only avoiding Sherlock’s eye. They’ve been fine…ish for a few days, but John doesn’t ask if he should go with Sherlock to Somerset. They part in somewhat awkward silence and Sherlock is left to the case.

He enjoys himself very much. It’s like one of those closed-circle mysteries from the books John likes to read—and the series John watches on DVD, although Sherlock’s not allowed to speak in the sitting room during those. There were eleven people in the mansion during the theft and it takes Sherlock one afternoon to deduce the ins and outs of the case, with one exception—the whereabouts of the painting. That takes three days and Sherlock forgets all about sounds and snakes. With one notable exception on the morning of the second day, when he has to devise a plan for an inconspicuous change of pyjama bottoms and sheets. It works, he hopes. The staff at the mansion must have seen much worse anyway, judging by the permanent post-orgy look on the face of the current snotty earl’s youngest son.

Sherlock returns to Baker Street at midday and gets a call from Lestrade before he’s even dropped his bag. At first he’s just absorbed with the promising new case, but then a little idea starts gnawing at him. By the time Sherlock’s got off the phone, it’s blossomed into a cunning plan.

***

“I won’t do it!”

“John, forget your misplaced modesty. It is _imperative_ we have someone there.”

“I told you: if it’s that imperative, you do it.”

“And I’ve told you I can’t. I’m too…memorable.”

“They won’t be looking at your face, you know!”

“Are you a victim of the dull stereotype that all art students are perverts, incapable of keeping their eyes away from the model’s—bits?” Sherlock’s lame finish ruins the entire effect of his condescending little speech. He chews on his bottom lip and looks at John’s stubborn expression under his eyelashes. Then he adds:

“And how did you know I was talking about my face when I said I was memorable?”

 _That_ gets Sherlock some leverage. John’s gaping at him with a curious cocktail mixed in the blue of his eyes. Sherlock would dearly love to try getting drunk on that cocktail, maybe chase away some of the blue in favour of the expanding black of the pupil, but he’s got a plan to execute and John’s quiet must be used.

“John, I won’t do it. I can’t find anyone else to do it, because I can’t rely on people’s observational skills the way I do on yours and I don’t have the time to train anyone. You are the only person I can trust to do this properly—and that young man is depending on us, and us only. The police have largely dismissed his concerns, and if you’re prepared to have the consequences of your refusal weigh on your shoulders, just because of some old-fashioned, bourgeois understanding of propriety—“

“Fine, fine, I’ll do it! God help me. Three hours, that is all—three hours!”

Sherlock could barely hold himself back from performing a little dance routine around the sitting room.

“Yes, of course; three hours should be more than enough.”

“And Sherlock—“

“Hm?” Sherlock turns from his privately triumphant exit of the scene.

John’s eyes have narrowed.

“I don’t want a trace of a familiar face there, you got that? Not a trace.”

“Of course, of course! There won’t be any familiar faces there, I promise.”

Technically, he isn’t lying.

***

Sherlock times his arrival at the changing rooms to perfection. He’s already ensconced in an ideally placed chair, hunched over a book, when John walks in.

“Oh. Hello.”

Sherlock just buries his face deeper into the book and doesn’t reply. He’s the quintessential type of art student, who thinks being rude is part and parcel of being cool. He also makes a rather attractive female art student, if he does say so himself: long-legged, slim and with thick shoulder-length auburn hair. Too bad John can’t see the make-up, but it highlights Sherlock’s cheekbones and Sherlock can’t risk any double-takes. He’s often cursed his idiosyncratic bone structure—it makes disguises so much more difficult.

John disrobes himself a tad self-consciously, but Sherlock’s earlier lack of desire for interaction pays off—in a few seconds John forgets about the young woman sitting with her back to him and ignoring him thoroughly.

After a few more seconds Sherlock presses a button discreetly. John’s phone beeps equally discreetly and impatient, John shuffles through his belongings. Three hours in his birthday suit under the eyes of a dozen strangers appear to have shifted his inhibitions considerably. Oblivious of his nudity John reads the message, modest satisfaction from a job well done taking over his features. Sherlock almost throws caution out of the window, so strong is the urge to pounce on John and show him how unwise it is to be standing there, naked and gorgeous and beautifully proportionate, with those inviting wisps of hair and that lovely compact handful down there, just begging to be—

Thankfully John chooses that moment to head for the shower. Sherlock closes his book with a bang and takes a deep breath. Stage two over, stage three is on.

***

John comes out, and Sherlock has a fairly predictable déjà vu, what with the towel and the dampness. What turns this into a new scene is the fact that now John removes his towel completely. On cue Sherlock’s fancy gem-stone bookmark gets dropped. It rolls heavily under the locker next to John’s. John’s startled for a second and instinctively places his hands over his intimate parts when the art student kneels next to him to start looking for the lost item. But within seconds he’s relaxed again and Sherlock takes his chance. He grabs the bookmark, straightens his back without rising and turns his head. The tattoo is bang on where it should be and all he needs is one look to determine if it’s the kind that can be removed with a laser.

This is where his plan goes wrong.

***

In retrospect Sherlock should have allowed for the possibility of his going a bit haywire in close proximity to the tattoo, since that was exactly what happened the last two times. But he became so buoyant at the prospect of having a proper look at it again—the idea of having it removed (replaced?) already wriggling its eyebrows seductively at him—that he was just careless.

Which is why he’s unprepared now, when his fingers reach out to touch yet again.

Oh, it’s so much louder this time; it exterminates all other sound.

 _*Please, PLEASE, touch, rub, stroke, STROKE, STROKE, TOUCH, pressing, heat, more, MORE, TOUCH, please*_

Sherlock resurfaces as if he’s been hauled out of a vivid dream. He had felt something electrical zinging at the ends of his fingers and it must have sent him back onto his bottom with some force, because that’s where he finds himself: on his bottom, looking dazedly up at an angry John Watson who is saying things and waving his arms, not even covering his—now _that_ is very interesting; what symphony of movement there—no, no, don’t hide it! John!

“Are you listening to me at all? Stop staring at—Sherlock! Sherlock! This has gone too far even for your—Sherlock!”

“Hm?” Sherlock manages.

“What has got into you? Stop that, for goodness sake! You’ve been obsessed with my tattoo ever since—”

“It’s speaking to me, John.”

There, he said it. He feels just as ridiculous as he thought he would.

John raises his eyebrows.

“My tattoo is speaking to you?”

“Yes.”

“Right. That’s new! What is it saying exactly?”

There might be a trace of mockery in John’s exasperated voice, but Sherlock’s on a proper mission now.

“It begs, mostly. To be touched and to be rubbed, and…other things. It also wanted me to lick it.”

John boggles at him. Sherlock frowns and leaps to his feet.

“Put your clothes on. We’re going home. I need to conduct an experiment.”

“Oh no, you don’t. Don’t even think—“

John’s voice dissipates.

***

John is naked, of course—squirming but naked. And currently standing by the strong sunlight coming in his bedroom window. (“Why do I have to be naked? Can’t I just show you the tattoo?” “No. You were naked all the three times when it happened and the sounds were much louder both times the towel was gone.” “We can still try just with the tattoo first.” “John, which one of us has the much greater experience in the proper procedures of experimental science?” “Oh, it’s science now, is it?” “Just take your clothes off.”)

Sherlock is better prepared this time. He’s clean and fresh after a cool shower, and his head feels clearer too. Trying to ignore the swarm of buzzing sensations running up and down his body at the prospect of kneeling in front of a naked John, Sherlock takes a sip of water. His mouth has gone very dry and the water tastes funny, but at least it goes some way towards removing the final traces of the horrid pills John has continued insisting Sherlock take. The man is relentless: in the middle of his reluctant striptease he stopped and told Sherlock he wasn’t taking off as much as a sock more until Sherlock took his medication. “Just look at you. Your skin’s become so dry, it’ll start falling off your face, Sherlock. Did you even make it to a litre a day while you were at Somerset?”

Sherlock takes a deep breath and steps closer to John. With every inch the distance between their bodies lessens, the air vibrates more loudly. Sherlock is still holding John’s eyes, when he begins dropping to his knees. He doesn’t want to make John uncomfortable by looking elsewhere and he really can’t trust where his own eyes might stray to if he let them. But instead of dissolving the awkwardness, their prolonged eye contact during Sherlock’s descent adds a thick layer of another kind of tension. Until now Sherlock has tried to keep a one-track mind: check the tattoo; check if the tattoo can be removed (replaced!); establish the origin and nature of the auditory experiences when close to the tattoo. It was all about the tattoo. He _tried_.

It also meant risks weren’t being taken. A fellow was allowed to get rather tetchy when he woke up to find another fellow sucking on a patch of his skin unannounced. The accidental hip-punch and the yelling, if somewhat devoid of finesse, were not unexpected. But a fellow would likely take an even less delicate approach if he found out the urge to engage—orally—with his entire body had become rather consuming for the other fellow. He might want to leave. He might punch the other fellow in earnest. Yet, as Sherlock feels the hard wood of the floor boards under his knees and inhales the unmistakeable scent of musk oozing from John’s body, he isn’t sure he can play it safe anymore.

He lowers his eyes to the tattoo. Contrary to his expectations, here under bright light and scrutiny, the snake has even more mystique. The need to trace it with his fingers, to find its purpose, its importance on John’s skin takes Sherlock over. The soft pads of his fingers touch, then slide over the tattoo’s outlines in reluctant reverence.

 _*Caress, CARESS, STROKE, yes, touch, soft, SOFT, stroke, rub, yes, stroke, caress, TOUCH, yes, YES, YES*_

Sherlock swallows and continues his tactile exploration, fingers tingling. Direct pulses of arousal start from their tips and spread through Sherlock’s body, meticulously including every muscle and sinew, every bone. By the time they reach Sherlock’s abdomen and spike further down, his heart is hammering. Sherlock closes his eyes and unconsciously drops his temple to rest on the hip. His face is burning, waves and waves of heat bathing him, but from within. At that unprecedented closeness John’s clean, masculine scent sweeps Sherlock’s lungs into its embrace. Sherlock feels some small trembling, but isn’t sure if it’s his body or John’s. The tattoo is right under his forehead: the noises haven’t stopped. Very weak, they’re hardly a whisper, slithering through him, telling him, begging him, making him—

Sherlock’s hands rise to hold John’s hips, seeking stability. Then he peels his face away from John and very slowly places his lips, full and soft, over the tattoo. The whispers grow stronger and Sherlock lets them lead him. His bottom lip drags a moist patch and his top lip smears it over the snake’s head. His tongue hesitates then swirls over the entire drawing. Sherlock closes his mouth and gently sucks as if he’s trying to extract the suspended drops of ink from the epidermis. His teeth scrape the skin and the noises grow louder still, so he scrapes again. He bites gently once, twice, until he’s finally kissing the tattoo with an open, eager mouth, his tongue lapping and stroking. The whispers turn into a torrent now, reaching to the furthest, most derelict corners of his body, giving promises, making demands—  
 _  
*IN YOUR MOUTH, TAKE, TAKE*_

Sherlock presses his face into the hip with a moan, while his hands clutch harder for support. His breath is ragged; he’s grateful John’s quiet—

John. Indeed John hasn’t made a sound and his body hasn’t moved. His hands however…his hands have found their way into Sherlock’s hair and fingers have intertwined with curls. They tug, the barest movement, but it raises a tsunami of goose bumps over Sherlock’s flesh. He doesn’t move, unwilling to break the spell, but lifts his eyes to John’s face.

John has tilted his head backwards, as if he’s in a trance, eyes closed and mouth just barely open. A tree of crimson has spread over his upper body: the roots—John’s chest, the trunk—John’s neck, the crown—John’s face. He is magnificent. Sherlock’s eyes get wide open to drink him in—and in his peripheral vision Sherlock notices something new and equally magnificent, something that is _begging_ for him. His eyes devour it and one of Sherlock’s hands moves…

“Take me in your mouth.”

It takes Sherlock a moment to realize this voice isn’t coming from inside his head. Then, tattoo forgotten, Sherlock obeys.

***

“I was thinking that when we get your tattoo replaced, I can get one myself. It should strengthen the bond."

John lifts his blissed-out face from the pillow and squints lazily at Sherlock.

“What’s wrong with my tattoo?”

“It doesn’t have anything to do with me.”

John chuckles.

“Can’t I keep this last corner of independence on my body? The rest is clearly under your flag now.”

Sherlock props himself on his elbow and places his hand on the small of John’s back in a mildly proprietary gesture.

“No. But you can choose what tattoo to have. And where to have it.” The last is added as an afterthought—Sherlock doesn’t want to be unreasonable.

“Can’t I just have this one removed and leave it at that?”

“It’s my only brush with the so called ‘paranormal’, John! I’ll need to study it. This—” Sherlock gestures between their relaxed bodies and the mess of sheets “—will have to be repeated in thousands of variations until I’ve got enough data.”

John smiles benevolently.

“Anything I can do to advance science.”

Sherlock gazes at him and shyly contemplates what things are okay to do now. Then he lowers his face to John’s.

***

 _Four weeks earlier_

The first time it happened, John had dismissed it outright. It was a trick of the mind. He’d been suffering from insomnia for two weeks, what with the desert and the stress, and the meds had only just kicked in. It was a small miracle he wasn’t _seeing_ things.

The second time it happens, John remembers it’s happened before. Back in Afghanistan, when he couldn’t sleep for weeks, like now, and he had to take the same combination of medica—

John freezes; then he lifts the box of pills he’s holding. He looks at it, before rummaging through his drawer and taking out a second, different box. John contemplates the two boxes for several long seconds, his lips pursing forward.

Then a wicked grin spreads across his face.

**Author's Note:**

> Beta by the fantastic disastrolabe. Written for tattoo_kink with thanks for her winning my help_japan auction. Original entry at my Livejournal at http://stardust-made.livejournal.com/14730.html


End file.
